Friday, December 4, 2009

Ok, before the physics/chemistry folks remind me that atoms don't actually look like that, let me remind everyone that modeling the three dimensional probability cloud of an electron with frosting just isn't going to happen in my kitchen. Sorry! Ms. Humble is taking some artistic license here.

Obviously I didn't even including a nucleus with these. Well, I did for some but the cookies just looked far more interesting uncluttered by a nucleus.

Besides, I wanted to use silver dragees for electrons, so I had to define an absolute location for them. I just tossed out all that electron 'wave' nonsense. That's right, I can do that. No probability distribution for me, I know where those electrons are. They're right there on my cookies.

So we're using Martha Stewart's Chocolate Cut Out Cookie recipe for this (link), even though I admit I am not a huge fan of this cookie's somewhat boring flavor. Maybe I just expect too much from a chocolate cookie. Perhaps a kind, fellow baker will point me in the direction of a really tasty chocolate cookie cutout recipe sometime...maybe? I would really appreciate it.

So for these cookies I used a simple flower cookie cutter to cut the shape, one that would allow for several electron orbitals on it. This one fits three, what does that make it... lithium? Anyway, then I just piped overlapping ellipses on the cookie with royal icing and placed a silver dragee on each orbit.

Very simple science themed cookies.

This one is kind of scary, it has 2 bonded electrons on the same orbital... is that dangerous?

Last but not least, a cookie with a nucleus for the purists:

I even used gold and rose colored dragees to differentiate between the protons and neutrons. I hope that pleases everyone.

I think I would call the nitrogen instead of lithium, since all the electrons appear to be in similar orbits (i.e. 2p electrons (the orbits even kind of look like perpendicular p orbitals)). Since you've left out the neuclius, may as well leave out the core electron shells as well. Your bonded electron sample would then be an oxygen atom. According to the electron cloud model, there's no problem with electrons (of opposite spin) occupying the same location.

These look awesome. If you're looking for a tasty chocolate cookie recipe, try a chocolate-pistachio heart base (the extra layer of chocolate before the white icing might be a bit more work, but they're fantastic):

May I just say that discovering your blog has just made my life immesurably better? I'm a science geek working on my master's (former life in biochem, current in genetics) and this makes looming finals so much sweeter (probably literally).

Thank you for sharing your cookies to the joy of the science geeky world.

I love all your science cookies so much! And since you asked, my favorite recipe for chocolate sugar cookies is in the book Cookie Craft. She also has recipes for 3 different versions of royal icing... using powdered egg whites, pasteurized egg whites and meringue powder. (Personally, I have never really liked any of Martha's recipes... definitely lacking in the flavor department. They look nice, though.)

I made a chocolate Halloween house complete with stained glass windows using the Cookie Craft recipe. (And I've got a link to the book too).

I have an urge to send this to every nerd friend I know who also loves to bake. Did you ever find another chocolate cut out recipe? I like the brownie roll out cookies from smitten kitchen, and I bet they would work well for these: http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/04/brownie-roll-out-cookies/